this is a gift, it comes with a price
by Regal-Song
Summary: Amelia Song Series - She made up fairytales, about the hidden halls, where her mother was always the beautiful maiden; her father was the heroic good wizard, and she the pretty princess that saved the day.


The Amelia Song Series.

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><p>Amelia wandered her way down the length of her favourite hall. She brushed her fingers along the cool wooden frames, feeling the grain as she moved and the soft carpet squished beneath her sandaled feet. The TARDIS had rooms upon rooms, always moving and always changing, but she loved this hall because it was always the same and no matter where she was in the Tardis, she could always find it when she wanted it most.<p>

The first door on the left was the swimming pool, and three doors down on the right, was the diving board _into_ the swimming pool. Her bedroom was just next to that, its bright blue door standing out amongst the rows and rows of regular brown oak. She'd decorated it with stick-on stars that her Grandmother had given her for Christmas and though her father had tried to point his sonic at them and change them for a constantly turning galaxy of a million, million stars; she said no. She liked her simple, stick-on, glow-in-the-dark stars that Amy had bought her from the little corner shop, in Leadworth. She liked everything that her grandparents had given her, from Rory's old rocking horse, to Amy's poor choice in sweaters.

All the way at the end of the hall, where the lights were dim and the plush rug ended in a flourish of gold and rich red embroidery, stood the thick, brass-handled door of her parents' bedroom.

She loved their door the best.

All of the doors in the Tardis told a story and all of them had their own adventures. They moved and they turned and they changed. One day one of her favourite doors would be in the library, the next, she'd climb out of the swimming pool and see it right before her. She loved her parent's door because it was big and wide and it looked like it was always going to be warm inside.

Light always shone through underneath and when she stepped up to it, the TARDIS always opened it for her. She loved it because it lead her from her favourite hall, into her favourite room, where she could run into her parents bed, scramble up onto the high mattress – using her father's foot for leverage – and curl up between them.

Her favourite hall remained such, because her legs were still too little to run too far and she knew that her mother would get angry if she played games too deep in the Tardis. It was home and it was safe and they all knew that the Tardis wouldn't let any harm come to her. But a mother's worry wasn't so easily swayed, so she stayed close.

When her parents disappeared out those brilliant blue doors – kissing her forehead and making her promise to behave as they stepped out into the sunshine and the planets and the million, million, burning stars - it was just her and the old girl, left singing lullabies to one another, she was allowed to wander further.

It was their little secret.

She discovered rooms and playthings hiding far, far away. Whole worlds buried and secrets, shrouded in the twisty-turny passageways. She made up fairytales, about the hidden halls, where her mother was always the beautiful maiden; her father was the heroic good wizard, and she the pretty princess that saved the day.

When her mother and father went to visit the Aplans, she stayed on the Tardis. She mostly always stayed on the Tardis, because mother and father said that it wasn't safe. She'd only ever seen the outside, when they opened the doors to space, or a safe, uninhabited planet or her grandparent's garden. Sometimes she wondered why – her parents said it was because she was special – but she never asked. She didn't mind though, because her father shut the door behind them and she was left with her big, blue best friend and they explored an entire room full of bouncy castles, together.

When they returned, they showed her what the Aplans looked like and she giggled at the images of the high-chancellor's heads, arguing with one another. And then she told them about the new room the Tardis had put in her hallway, because she'd been a very good girl.

At night, just before bed, the door to her bedroom appeared just off the library because most nights, she fell asleep in her father's arms as her mother read them all a bedtime story. She loved the smell of his shirt and the feel of his dark-blue bowtie the best. She curled her fingers in the warmth at the nape of his neck, and listened to her mother's soft cadence – doing all of the voices – as she drifted off to sleep.

She was never really fully asleep when they took her off to bed. She always heard them whispering. Sometimes her mother giggled or her father chuckled or they quietly bickered back and forth, making her smile in her sleep. Every now and then she could make out words – that she had _his_ chin or that she had_ her_ hair or that she had the cheek-bones of his eighth regeneration, whatever that meant – but the nights her mother was silent, she listened to them close the door behind them with wide eyes facing the wall as she hugged her sock-monkey tight to her chest.

Her mother was always afraid of something. But every morning, she curled her body into her mother's chest, with her father at her back, breathing in the scent of her mother's wild hair and she never saw how her mother's tear-filled eyes looked up at her father. She never noticed how their hands reached out to lock around her, or how in a little blue book, tucked underneath their heads, there was a story about two little girls and a woman with an eye-patch.

The End.


End file.
